Public Shaming:

What the newest action taken by the regime tell us about weakness.

NOTE: This article contains pictures of violence and cruelty that some may find disturbing and may not be suitable for young readers.

It’s a picture I can’t get out of my mind. Portrait after portrait of individuals called criminals, arsonists, rapists, killers, and thieves strewn all over the White House lawn. Sending a message that our country revels in the cruelty of public shaming. Here’s another montage created sometime in the early 20th Century. It shows a person who did “wrong” in the United States back in the day, yet their shadow falls over the people like a stain.

It’s an act and a message - “mess with us and you know what will happen”.

Public shaming has been used to objectify people and justify cruelty. Once Jews were forced to wear unique yellow stars on their clothing, they were easily identified for abuse no matter where they went. It was a green light that said, “go ahead, they’re not fully human anyway, you can do what you want to them.”.

Making people feel ashamed of themselves works especially well for children because they’re so vulnerable to oppression. In resettlement schools all over North America, Native American children were sent to be reborn into white Americans starting with the cutting of their braids. Braids were and are important to Native Americans, as they can signify a connection to ancestry, family, and tribe or even to a spiritual practice. Imagine being stripped of this connection for all to see.

During WWII, our government leaders embraced the idea of publicly corralling Japanese Americans into internment camps, forcing them to leave home and work because they were the same nationality as an enemy. They were suspicious and not to be trusted was the message.

Yet, public shaming goes way, way back. Being locked in the stocks or the pillory was a common practice for hundreds of years. As was silencing women through the use of the “Scold’s Bridle”, something women were forced to wear if they were found to be too “mouthy” .

The kind of public shaming taking place on the grounds of the White House is an action and a message, just like all public shaming. It’s designed to keep people in line, like black Americans and Jews of years past. The purpose is to make the individual feel ashamed, like the Native American children, or powerless, like women physically silenced.

The only shameful act here is the one perpetrated by our own government, who continues to pander to an electorate that loves nothing better than a good old-fashioned scapegoat. We have no idea if any of these people depicted in this way are guilty of anything. It is our responsibility as Americans to not judge these people until they have their day in court, which is going to be when?

Public shaming, ignoring habeas corpus, grabbing people off the streets or in their churches or schools. Using unmarked vehicles and out of state jails and internment camps as a means of hiding what they’re doing. Whisking people away to another country and then claiming there is simply no way to bring them back - sniff, sniff. These are all blinking red lights of weakness, weakness, weakness.

Weak people intentionally do things to make themselves APPEAR strong. As if the public display of people denied their rights is something that denotes leadership. Were the Nazi’s judged by history to be leaders? Was the local sheriff in the deep south a leader when he donned a white robe and grabbed a rope? Was the nun chopping off braids from children’s heads someone to emulate? Of course not, but that’s not what they want you to think.

I condemn the regime for this public act of shame, not on these people, but on themselves. It is their own weakness that is on display. Their own cruelty and stupidity in thinking that oppression denotes greatness. We know their game and that is why we resist.